FACULTY PROFILE
GENERAL DENTAL SCIENCES DEPARTMENT WELCOMES NEW LEADER Meet clinician-scientist Ana Bedran-Russo these two passions, she went on to earn her master’s and doctoral degrees in clinical sciences from the University of Campinas. A study-abroad opportunity with her doctoral program took her to the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill, where she was wowed by the relatively vast resources available to U.S. researchers. Her post-doc fellowship took her back to UNC, where she met periodontics resident Stephen Russo, now her husband. Ana Bedran-Russo
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r. Ana Bedran-Russo had her eye on the Marquette University School of Dentistry for some time before she was named professor and chair of the Department of General Dental Sciences this past March.
An opportunity for Stephen took the couple to the Chicago area, and Bedran-Russo landed a post-doc position at UIC, eventually joining the faculty. “I was teaching three days a week in clinic, I was in private practice and I was developing a research project,” she recalls. That project, looking at the stability of cross-linked dentin and its clinical application, won a 2005 K08 Mentored Clinical Scientist Award that protected 75 percent of Bedran-Russo’s time for research, and she developed the skills that she would need to build a thriving lab.
“I've always heard about their strong clinical program and I knew of the investment they made the past seven to 10 years to expand She continued to secure National Institutes of Health grants, their research program,” she says. Living in a including 2 R01s and an R56, for her highly Chicago suburb midway between the Windy translational research looking at functional She says she is impressed City and Milwaukee, Bedran-Russo also aspects of dental tissue components with a with the number of women goal of strengthening and sustaining the national reasoned that if the next step in her career involved joining Marquette, she would have dentition. Her clinical efforts have focused in leadership roles at a manageable commute. on preserving tooth structure and minimally Marquette, appreciates invasive interventions. It’s a trip she had made just a handful of what she senses is a times in her first couple of months on the As Bedran-Russo moved into a career-stage collaborative atmosphere, job, given that the university and dental mindset where she felt “ready to offer more to and admires the university’s others,” she secured a fellowship position with clinics have been closed due to the coronavirus pandemic. “I moved with a research lab, commitment to serving the an executive leadership in academic medicine so I have had to physically move my lab and program for women, offered through Drexel surrounding community. organize things,” she says of her few visits University. It helped her prepare for her new to the Dental School building. role as a department chair, where she is excited about supporting faculty career development and scholarship, Bedran-Russo came to Marquette from the University of Illinois sustaining and advancing the high standards of MUSoD’s programs at Chicago College of Dentistry, where she wore several hats in and networking with other leaders on campus. the department of restorative dentistry. She directed the applied biomaterials and bio-interfaces lab, headed a program in multiShe says she is impressed with the number of women in leadership disciplinary oral sciences training and was a full professor. roles at Marquette, appreciates what she senses is a collaborative atmosphere, and admires the university’s commitment to serving A clinician-scientist with a broad background in hard tissue and the surrounding community. biomaterials, Bedran-Russo is the daughter of two Brazilian dentists and physiologists who encouraged her along the same path. She fell “This felt like a perfect place for me to take the next step in my in love with both research and restorative dentistry during dental career,” she says. "I look forward to contributing to many aspects school at the State of Sao Paulo University. Wanting to combine of the pillars of the university.”
D E N TA L I M A G E S
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